Booted Out of Drill Boots

Sorry to disappear on everyone. Or, maybe I haven't been gone long enough that anyone noticed. The passage of time is very weird here.

That'll probably keep cropping up for as long as I have a life in here and relationships out there. The time doesn't pass the same way - it's a lot longer on this side.

This whole week's been crazy-busy, with a brief stop-off on getting nastily sick on Tuesday. Apparently my friend down the hall came to check on me and thought I had died by how pale I was. I was asleep at the time. Seriously, people, check for pulse. Makes a big difference.

One of the big points to stress in all of our on-base news is how overmanned the Navy is. At present, there's at least a one-year wait for DEP - that's the time between when you enlist, and when you actually leave for Basic. I suspect that this may not be the same for all rates, but I can believe that it's most of them. Also, it's a LOT easier to get dismissed now.

Which brings up another interesting point that a few of us girls started talking about in Boot Camp. The stakes are now that much higher. If you serve out your enlistment and then go anywhere else to get hired, having the mark that you served in the military opens a lot of doors (or at least it did before the economy tanked - there's a reason that we're now overmanned). BUT, getting dismissed before the end of your enlistment...that makes you practically impossible to hire. Medical discharge is different, of course.

I got to see Chief this morning. The lad who had the privilege to precede me was having a chat with him (I use the term "chat" humorously - getting verbally flogged would be more accurate) because the kid fell asleep in class. It is possible to get recommended for separation for falling asleep in class. Separation means you go back out into the real world, except now there's this permanent mark on you that says you failed at the military. That's a smaller example - they're cracking down in a lot of areas. The biggies for us are any discipline infractions, failing to maintain the physical requirements, and failing to cut it in your program. Used to be that the Navy would reclassify you into another rate. Not now - don't bother, you failed once, we've got another recruit out there somewhere who's ready to take your spot, and maybe they won't biff it up.

But, all is not gloomy. Actually, these grim little expressions flit around the crowd of sailors when we hear more about this, but then half an hour later, it's like we just figured out the next piece of the climb, tightened our harnesses, and we're back on what we were doing before. Camaraderie's building quite a bit with the coming summer - sometimes more swiftly than you realize. Suddenly, you're friends with about five people, and you have no idea how it happened.

Also! The Leading Chief Petty Officer is sort of like the principal for Combat Systems School. It's just a role in any chain of command - somewhere up the chain, you have the Leading Petty Officer, and higher than that, the Leading Chief Petty Officer. He's an E-7, which means that I am in his eyes a cockroach.

No, really. We all are. There are thousands of us, we all look the same, we have about the same abilities and the same function on this base, and you can put us through surprising amounts of nastiness without worrying about us dying off. And, on the off chance that someone DOES get booted because they couldn't make it through said nastiness, the higher-ups would notice very little difference. Also, we tend to look out for each other against the common enemy.

But today, I am a happy little creature, and I'm on my way from one place to another place inside the school. And, being a happy little creature, I tend to have music playing in my head*, and perhaps it might be in a certain accent, from a certain Monty Python production, and involve some whistling. And perhaps, just perhaps, I might be singing in a funny little accent, and whistling a funny little tune, just being in a funny little mood...and I might happen to come around a corner to find a Chief. Who's not funny at all. And definitely not little.

A silent scurrying to stage left seems the most appropriate response here. No comment from the Chief - perhaps he took no notice of me. A few minutes later, return to my classroom, mindset to get back to work...aahhhh, what is this? Someone from the class needs to go down and talk to the LCPO? And I was volunteered because I was out?

Oh dear.

If he recognized me, he gave no sign. Possibly, he considered it, and decided it would just be too weird to go through paperwork on it.

"If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten, and that's to laugh and dance and smile and sing..."
*This is always the case. Sometimes it'll be a very odd blending of three songs at once.